Feb. 18.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 625

(18.) If the applicant does not desire to appear, the declaration referred to in subsection (q) of section 165 of the Mining Act may be in the form numbered 28 in the First Schedule hereto.

(19.) All applications shall be numbered consecutively by the Registrar according to the order of time in which they are filed, and he shall record them in the same order and with the same numbers in a book to be called the “Application Record-book.”

(20.) If the application is for a license for a mining privilege, the license may be in such one of the forms numbered 29 to 38 in the First Schedule hereto as is applicable, or, if none of those forms be applicable, then in such form as the Warden prescribes or authorises:

Provided that in no case shall the license be for more than one mining privilege.

(21.) If the application is for a license for a mining privilege, and the land applied for exceeds the maximum area that may lawfully be held, the following provisions shall apply:—

(a.) At any time before the license is granted, or, if the license has been granted, then at any time before proceedings for forfeiture are instituted, the applicant or licensee, with the consent of the Warden, and upon such terms as to costs, adjournment, remarking, and otherwise as the Warden thinks fit, may discard the area in excess.

(b.) If the area in excess is discarded as aforesaid, then the application, or, if the license has been issued, then the license and the register, shall be duly rectified as the Warden directs, for the purpose of eliminating the discarded area.

(22.) For the purpose of hearing and disposing of the application the Warden shall sit alone, and the practice and procedure of the Warden’s Court relating to hearings before the Warden and Assessors shall not apply.

(23.) The appointment and notification by the Warden as to the time and place for the hearing of any application, or for the holding of any preliminary inquiry, may be made by him in such manner as he thinks fit, either generally with respect to all cases in a given Court-house or specifically with respect to specific cases, and may in like manner be made by the Registrar acting under the general instructions of the Warden.

SURVEYS.

34. Regulations for the time being in force relating to block and section surveys, made under “The Land Act, 1892,” shall be deemed to be incorporated herewith, and shall be read and construed, mutatis mutandis, as though they formed part of these regulations, but shall be construed subject to these regulations.

35. Before disposing of any application the Warden in his discretion may order the land to which the application relates to be surveyed, notwithstanding that the area does not exceed 20 acres.

36. In every case where the land to which the application relates is to be surveyed the surveyor appointed to make the survey shall with all practicable despatch proceed as follows:—

(1.) He shall duly and carefully survey the ground, and, after making all necessary inquiries, shall furnish to the Chief Surveyor for approval by him or the Chief Draughtsman, and transmission to the Warden, a plan of the ground, together with a report as to—

(a.) Its areas, boundaries, description, and character;

(b.) The likelihood of any watercourse or artificial reservoir within the boundaries being required for, or the feasibility of the same being applied to, public purposes, or the use of miners generally for gold-mining purposes;

(c.) The cases in which and the extent to which any mining privilege lawfully held by any other person than the applicant is likely to be affected by the grant of the application;

(d.) Any objections of a public nature to the granting of the application which are disclosed by the survey; and

(e.) Any other circumstances which, in the opinion of the surveyor, should be reported to the Warden to enable him properly to deal with the application.

(2.) The approval of the aforesaid plan and report shall be signified by memo. in writing thereon under the hand of the Chief Surveyor or Chief Draughtsman.

(3.) With the aforesaid plan and report, the surveyor shall also furnish to the Chief Surveyor for transmission to the Warden a tracing of so much of the general map of the district as will connect the land with at least one trigonometrical station, or, in the absence of such station, then with some fixed point.

37. The following general rules shall apply with respect to surveys:—

(1.) If the land to be surveyed affects or includes any mining privilege, private holding, building, race, or other area, whether held or occupied under the Mining Act or otherwise, the same must be shown by the surveyor on the plan, and full particulars relating thereto (including acreages) must, as far as practicable, be given in the surveyor’s report to the Warden. It shall be the surveyor’s duty to make careful inquiries respecting all claims to prior occupancy, and, if possible, to furnish the names of such occupants or claimants; but, in computing the acreage of the land surveyed it shall not be his duty to deduct therefrom the acreage of any land to which any such claim to prior occupancy relates.

(2.) Every survey must be connected with a fixed and clearly indicated survey mark already established, such as the corner of a section, the angle of a road, a trigonometrical station, or the corner of a mining claim already surveyed. But whenever, in forest lands, a trigonometrical station is within a quarter of a mile of the mining area under survey, connection with it must be made in preference.